Secret Worlds (91 page)

Silvia scoffs. “That's not how Daddy handles disagreements.”

“She has a point. I would know.” I grimace at all that implies.

“For so long, I thought he was going to send … ” Patricia looks down at her hands.

“Me,” I say for her.

She nods but doesn't raise her head. “It's been almost two years, and I've concluded he either hasn't reached me on the list … metaphorically. Maybe literally. Or, he's afraid.”

Silvia straightens. I'm sure implying Karl fears anything is highly offensive to the Walker clan. She is daddy's little demon, after all.

Patricia's lips tighten. “When I applied for the job at the mansion, I thought it was a great opportunity. Private care for a rich family. That's unusual for a doctor. I thought I would be taking care of elderly relatives. Things like that. But that's not what it was like at all. I wasn't taking care of the family so much. I was taking care of … others.”

“Hostages,” Silvia says without any emotion at all.

I look at her, and my stomach churns. She elicits that response more and more from me.

Patricia shudders. “There was so much blood sometimes.”

I shove down the images because I had a hand in that mess. Still do. Guess that answers what happens to my prisoners. At least some of them.

  “I don't understand how the infirmary works,” I say. “You just stayed at the mansion for when Karl needed you to stitch back up his prisoners?”

“Not exactly. It was me and another doctor. We rotated the on-call schedule. I worked in a hospital ER to fill in when I wasn't on-call for Karl.” She looks at me. “But sometimes we had to stay at the mansion, for days or even weeks at a time. Either when a … hostage … was being interrogated. Or when you were … away.”

“So, you're saying Karl kept a doctor on site during a wish. That way, if I got capped, he could summon me back to the mansion and get me fixed up?”

She nods.

“Considering what he sends me out to do, that's not a surprise.” I shift in my seat, both anticipating where this conversation is going to lead, and worried. “So, what was the fight about?”

“The vault,” she says.

“Karl has a vault?”

I must know next to nothing about the Walker estate. Then again, the Tent City jail is probably a more inviting place to hang out.

“Yes, a vault. About the size of a beer fridge.” Patricia starts picking at her nails. “It contains … uh, DNA.”

“My DNA,” I say, though I'm not entirely sure what this all means yet.

“Well, not really your DNA … ” Patricia doesn't look up from her nails. “Your father's, technically.”

I study her, trying to make sense of her words.

“Karl wanted to bring the jinn story into the twenty-first century. If something happens to you, the blood line is lost.” She finally looks at me. “He kept backup.”

“Like, stem cells?”

“No … ” She glances around the room, at nothing particular, just to avoid looking at me. “Stems cells wouldn't exactly work. He wanted to. . grow a test tube genie baby, if something happened to you before you … ”

My brain tries to wrap around what she is saying, but every angle seems perverted and overall kind of gross. Well, now I know where Silvia gets it from.

I say it outright, because Patricia isn't going to and I can't believe I fully grasp the situation: “Karl Walker is storing a mini-vault of genie baby batter because he's pretty sure I'm not going to survive long enough to procreate.”

She tightens her expression, then settles her gaze on me and nods.

“He does realize I'm twenty-three, right?”

She just stares at me.

“That aside, would a test tube genie even work?”

She shrugs. “He's the first to try it. Guess he feels like he didn't have much of a choice.”

Anger wells until my fingers are scratching the arm of the couch. “Well, if I'm so fuckin' incompetent he could just not send me to do his dirty errands.”

How many people have I killed? How many hostages have I delivered? How many impossible tasks has he sent me on, and I've still completed them? I may not be my father, but I have never needed the damn backup doctors, either.

I'm insulted. 

He wasn't praising me in the summoning chamber when I returned from blowing up the lab. He was mourning that his genie is the weakest link.

Fuck him.

“Six months after I started work at the mansion, a group of men visited my home.” Patricia goes back to her nails. “They told me about the genie and offered a substantial amount of money in return for a couple of vials.”

My head lolls back on the couch, and I groan. “Okay, I know that one won't work. There needs to be a master bond.”

“They were doctors, scientists, researchers. They had heard about the vault, somehow. They were curious.” Patricia stares at me. “They wanted to see what … ”

“I am,” I say for her, because I know exactly what she's talking about now. Patricia and I might as well be married. “They want to know what I am.”

She nods. “Normally, I wouldn't violate a job like that, but I had seen so many terrible things at the mansion. If I turned Karl in, he would come after me. I thought if I snuck out the DNA, something good might come of my horrible contract there. So, one night after fixing up a particularly … unhealthy … hostage, I grabbed three vials from the vault and stuffed them in my pocket. I dropped one, so I cleaned it up and disposed of it.

“Karl caught me on the way out.” She sighs, sounding exhausted. “We fought, but he managed to pry the vials from me. Of course, he didn't know I had broken one, and I didn't tell him. He thought it was already out of the mansion.”

I stare at her, but she continues to avoid me. “I still don't get why I wasn't sent to kill you.”

“He has no idea where that vial is. What research has been done. What reports have been written.” She shakes her head. “I think he fears if we start turning up dead, someone will blow it all open. So he's looking to discredit us instead. I mean, how hard would it be to make researchers claiming the jinn are alive today look off their rocker?”

“Did they find anything?” I turn my attention to my cup of water, still clutched in my hand and resting on my knee. For some reason, I can't look up as I ask, “Is the genie DNA different?”

“There are no reports. No tests. They never got a hold of the DNA. I broke one vial by accident before Karl discovered what I was doing, and then he confiscated the other two. He kicked me out of the mansion. I was terrified for the next months, trying to figure out what to do.” She inhales a deep breath. “Then ER patients began accusing me of malpractice, one case after another, and my hospital did nothing to defend me. The records had clearly been altered. 

“It didn't take long for me to realize someone was screwing with me. Eventually I had to face the board, but what was I supposed to say? That a millionaire in the desert is framing me because he doesn't want anyone to know he has a jinn? They wound up revoking my license, and I ran here to Virginia. Looks like he finally paid up his end of the deal with them.” 

“He goes to great lengths to protect the incompetent pet,” I say.

I'm just bitter now. 

“I don't see the point.” Silvia flutters her eyes. “Why do they care what his DNA looks like?”

I frown, mulling over the situation.

“It's not so much about why they care, but who?” I look up at Patricia again. “Who was bribing you to steal from the vault?”

Patricia tilts her head, studying me at length. I get it. I look human. And an apparently un-intimidating one at that.

“I'd never heard of him before. His name is Phil Ballantyne.”

I jerk forward, nearly spilling the glass of water. “Speech conference Phil?”

Patrica scowls. Then she looks like someone pulled a plug and all her color is swirling down the drain. She must have figured out Phil and I had our rendezvous.

“Yeah, I don't think Karl is as scared as you think he is,” I say. 

“Did you kill him?” Silvia sounds a little too excited by the prospect. “Which assignment was that?”

I hold up my hand. “It doesn't matter, Silv.”

The room grows silent. We all just stare at each other. 

Finally, I set the glass of water on the end table and pull to my feet. “I think we should get going.”

Silvia is at my side in an instant.

Patricia stares up at me, awe and fear vying for her expression.  

“Good luck.” I try to smile.

She nods, but we both know that when Karl sends me for her, I will snap her neck.

Silvia lights a cigarette, takes a puff, then taps ashes out the car window. “I don't understand something.”

I focus on the road ahead. “Why your dad couldn't afford a lock for the vault?”

“Hmm. No.” She takes another puff. “I don't understand why we're going to Greensboro. I checked the map. It's south, and we should be going west.”

“Congrats on learning how to use your phone. We're flying back to Phoenix.”

She turns in her seat, arm out the window. “I don't fly, Dim.”

“I don't dump dead kittens on the side of the road, either, Silv. We're both doing new things on this trip.”

She glares at me, but I pretend to ignore her. 

Eventually, she flicks her cigarette out the window and settles back into her seat. “I want a soda.”

I glance at the dash clock and do a quick calculation. “We have fourteen hours before our flight boards, and we're heading into Greensboro now. We'll stop at the first gas station.”

She doesn't reply, but lights up again. 

Greensboro is another green and clear place, like Danville. Just much larger. 

I pull into a convenience store parking lot. “Get me a Mountain Dew.”

She nods and slides out of the car. I watch as she trots into the store, then I lean back in my seat and close my eyes.

My phone vibrates, and I pull it out of my pocket to read the text message.

I want to move to Italy.

I stare at the message, trying to decipher if Syd is joking, serious, or just trying to get a reaction. I'll bite.

I text,
You won't miss me?

She replies,
You could come with me. I hear the Mafia is hiring.

I grin. Working for the mob would be better than my current gig, and I've seen The Godfather and all of The Sopranos.

I type,
I have a better idea. Stay put, and we'll talk about it over wine tomorrow evening.

In a few minutes, she replies,
You're coming home?

Yes, flight leaves in the morning.
 

She replies,
I'll wait for you then, Dionysus.

Who the hell is this Dionysus? I do a quick search on my phone, then grin. Dionysus. Greek god of wine. I'm pretty sure there were cooler gods, but I'll take it. 

I put my phone down and lean back to close my eyes again. Syd is waiting for me at home. I can't imagine a better feeling. It lulls me into sleep.

I jar awake, grabbing the wheel. Then I realize I'm still parked. Silvia isn't back yet.

“What the frack?” I grumble, stepping out of the car. 

She is going to be the death of me, sooner or later.

I rub my hand over my face as I head into the convenience store. The door chimes my entrance, and I gaze over the room.

No Silvia.

I stab her name on my phone contact list and scowl as I listen to the rings.

She picks up on the fifth. “Go away, Dim.”

“What the hell are you doing?” I sound angry, because I am.

“I'm not flying,” she says with that tone reserved for the Walkers.

“Where are you?”

She hangs up. 

I stare down at my phone, then growl and storm back out to my car. If I know Silvia, she's heading west with some vague notion that she will, eventually, wind up in Phoenix.

I am correct. She's three blocks away, strolling like her destination is a corner cafe.

Karl should have left her to the coyotes.

I slow the car to follow next to her and roll down the window. “You know maps are to scale, right?”

“Shut up, Dimitri.” 

“So you gonna rent a car and drive back to Phoenix?”

She shrugs and keeps walking.

“Get in.” I take a glance at my surroundings. “Last warning.”

She juts her chin and doesn't slow as she steps into the crosswalk.

I swing the car around, burst out, and have her down and shackled in the backseat before her scream even finishes. She chokes in surprise.

I slide into the car, slamming the door shut, and hit the gas.

“Let me out of these!” She beats her fists against the back of the driver seat.

“Not a chance. I don't care so much about bringing you home in one piece, but your dad probably does.”

She says with the edge of a growl, “That's all you ever care about.”

“That's all I'm allowed to care about.” I tap my finger to my temple. “He's a very demanding boss.”

She huffs and throws herself back into the seat. “I know he is, but you always take it out on me. None of this is my fault.” 

“That's a typical—” I catch myself and close my mouth. Maybe it is a typical thing for a Walker to say, but it might also be true. At least this time. Silvia didn't have any more say being born into the master bond than I did getting the less coveted role. Neither of us did anything, and that is the whole problem. I sigh. “No, this wasn't your doing, but you could acknowledge you were dealt the better cards.”

She remains silent. I glance at her in the rear view mirror. She's sulking, but I hope, at least for a minute, she's trying to wrap her brain around what I'm telling her.

At length, I say, “You've made it loud and clear I will still be property. I get it. I'm just asking for you to stop acting like you earned this, because you didn't. We both were born into a weird situation, and you got the better deal. You don't have to pretend to regret it. Just don't pretend like you're entitled to it.”

We reach the airport. I find a secluded place to unlock her shackles before parking. Inside the terminal, I print the tickets, check our luggage, and lead her to our gate. The whole time, she remains quiet, but there's a strange look on her face. I think it's humility.